


in the lonely hours

by mintakas



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Porn, Bottom Eren Yeager, Canon Compliant, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt, Heavy Angst, M/M, Pining, Porn With Plot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rough Sex, Top Levi Ackerman, also i never ever write top levi but first time for everything ig, slight breeding kink sorry, this is very dark but what do you want from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-23 00:08:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30046917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintakas/pseuds/mintakas
Summary: "He remembers the nights that he would curl into himself, wrap his arms around his body and pretend, pathetically, that they belonged to someone else. Spent the hours rocking himself to sleep in place of a mother; someone to lie to him, to promise him that everything would be alright.The Captain never lied, not about anything that mattered."After the raid on Liberio, Hanji and the others send Eren to a remote island with Levi whilst they plan what to do next.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman/Eren Yeager
Comments: 10
Kudos: 97





	in the lonely hours

**Author's Note:**

> i had to take a short break from my ongoing to study but then last night this literally hit me and i had to keep writing until i got it all out so here it is i guess?? also i literally never write top levi and this kind of fell out of me 
> 
> this is v dark im sorry

_“Being in love with you is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.”_

_“You’ve killed so many people, Eren. If that’s one of the hardest things you’ve ever done then you’re more of a monster than I thought.”_

Levi looks at him with the same disgust now that he had all those years ago when he’d beaten him purple and blue in the courtroom. 

And Eren – he looks at him the same way he always had done, too – as though he would tear apart the world to keep him safe, he and so many others, and he would, he almost did – even if his motives were hazy and unclear, and never to be comprehended or understood, _unjustifiable, Eren, fucking abhorrent –_

And Levi’s right, like he always is: 

Eren _is_ a fucking monster, so full of hate and rage, and that’s why he deserves to suffer, deserves to have Levi hate him, even now, as the captain drills in to him, hatefully, relentlessly, fingers twisted right into the root of his hair. 

Levi tells him he’s a disgrace and Eren says “I know,” and then he’s coming, and falling, and Levi catches him with the barest hint of lips on skin, and Eren thinks that perhaps they were always meant to be this, this ugly amalgamation of hate and regret and love and pity and shame.

It spurs him on, now, the depth of Levi’s loathing. 

After all these years, and all the death, it’s only thing keeping him warm.

*

One day, when Levi is nursing a cup of tea by the fireplace, Eren asks him if he ever thought about killing him, even though he knows the answer. Asks because it fills this narcissistic cavity in his soul; to know that there’s some form of punishment, however small.

Levi barely looks up at him as he speaks.

“Killing you would be easy. You deserve to live with this.” 

And Eren, he nods – the captain could take him down no problem, and that’s the thing, isn’t it? Levi _could_ snub Eren out, wipe him off the face of the planet so that he couldn’t hurt anyone else. It would be as easy as breathing, and yet he doesn’t, he can’t. 

In part because whilst the regiment still hadn’t decided what they wanted to do with him, but also because as much as he liked to pretend otherwise, Levi was human, too.

Selfish and complicated and broken, and Eren pretends not to hear him crying at night, in those lonely hours, when he thinks that Eren is sleeping. Fucking stings like broken skin dipped in lemon and salt, the fact that Levi will never share those moments with him, certainly not now. 

The only reprieve he’ll allow himself if when Levi fucks him. Eren isn’t sure when it began, and they’d never shared a single word about it – if only because Eren knows the shame that Levi feels those nights when the only way he can sleep is by fucking Eren into the mattress. 

Eren, he deserves it.

Deserves the splitting pain of the captain pushing inside him, breaching him dry on the nights that he was particularly angry, unable to grant him the kindness of preparation. It hurts in a way that calms him, realigns all of the fractured pieces of his soul, placates the demons that lurk in ever corner of his mind enough that they might shrink away, if only for moments at a time.

He’d started by never speaking a word, as Levi used him. Wouldn’t dare to comment on the fact that, yes, he could feel that familiar wetness against his cheek – and then the pang of salt against his tongue as the droplets rolled into his mouth.

One night, though, as Levi had crept into his room, and Eren had spread his legs, willingly, achingly hard in anticipation, Levi had whispered against his ear as he fumbled with his belt buckle:

“Do you want my cock, Eren?”

There had been this sudden fear, this sickening thought that shook Eren to his core: if he said yes, he did want it, would Levi deny him? Was he only as interested as he was in using Eren because of the possibility that Eren might not want him to? But then he’d doubled down, angry that he should even think himself worthy of a choice, of saying no, after everything he’d done, and of all the sins he still had yet to commit. Angry that he would even think the captain capable of something so vulgar, so senseless. And then, he’d erupted, this stream of consciousness, a verbal assault of affirmations that came tumbling from deep inside him, as though Levi had finally opened the floodgates. 

“Yes,” he’d told him, turning on his stomach. “I want you to fuck me, Captain. Make me hurt.” 

There was nothing off limits, anymore. 

Nothing was too wrong or depraved, not for this life. 

Not for them. 

*

He’s deeply in love with Levi.

Had admitted this to him one evening, as Levi had been cutting his hair. 

“I know I’m not supposed to,” he’d said, testing the waters. “But I love you, Captain.” 

And Levi had _tsked._ “Careful, Eren,” he’d warned, spinning the knife in his hand so that the blade digs threateningly into the base of his skull. “I might not be allowed to kill you but I can sure as Hell slice pieces off of you for as long as we’re stuck here.” 

“That’d be pointless,” Eren had told him, deliberately pushing his luck. “I regenerate too quickly for it to be effective.”

Levi had grabbed a handful of his hair and yanked his head back till the knife was cutting into his scalp. 

“Fucking brat.” 

That had been the first time Levi had fucked him outside of the bedroom, outside the strict hours of twelve to four a.m, and the first time by candlelight, so that Eren could watch the way Levi’s cock disappeared into him. Mocked him for being in love – _“if you were hoping I’d say it back then you’re more stupid that I thought,”_ – but this time, this time he’d kissed him, when usually Levi made a point of never kissing Eren on the lips, as though somehow it was too intimate, too honest, and this time he had. Eren wondered if he should avoid reading too much in to it – perhaps Levi only did it because on some level, he pitied him. Felt sorry for the wretch he had become. 

Or maybe, (just maybe) Levi was coming undone, too.

When they were finished, though, Levi had left him there on the floor, a shuddering mess, come weeping out of him like a leaky tap, and Eren had stayed there till morning, refusing to move. Wanting to hoard Levi’s come inside him like a woman, as though if he were lucky, he might carry, another Ackerman to gift to the world should there ever be a threat like him again. 

Hanji had sent them here on an airship, probably.

Levi had knocked him out whilst he was in the cells, and when he’d woken up, here they were – miles and miles from anything, surrounded by water, trapping him here, captive, with only Levi as company. 

It must have been an awkward conversation, Eren thinks. Hanji and Armin reasoning with Levi that he was the only one strong enough to deal with Eren, should he try and escape, and Levi submitting, because, of course he would – anything for the good of humanity. He was the perfect soldier, through and through. 

Flawed, and perfect, and broken.

Eren wants to ask who they are, the names he calls at night. 

There are the ones he knows, of course; he often cries over Petra, and his squad, but then there are others – an Isabelle, and a Farlan – 

And sometimes Eren does tiptoe across the hall to his room, peeks through the crack in the door, and there he is: asleep, sat up in his chair, sweating, the nightmares ripping him to shreds, leaving him a sobbing, shaking mess. 

Watches him until the dawn rolls in, sometimes, just for the way the light bathes his sleeping form in this rubescent glow, making all his sharp edges appear soft and fuzzy, and for a time, he isn’t Captain Levi, humanity’s strongest soldier, but just Levi; tired and vulnerable and _sad_.

Of course, there’s the emptiness that follows the moment that Levi pulls out of him. The desire to be held, and to hold; and again, Eren has to remind himself that he is not supposed to want. 

_“I’m scared, Captain –,”_

_“Everyone is scared. You weren’t anyone’s first choice, Eren. Nobody wanted this for you.”_

And that’s when Eren had learned to read between the lines with Levi – affection shrouded in cruelty, never quite saying exactly what he meant. Leaving it to Eren to decode. He’d wanted Levi to hold him, then, all those years ago – as he sat watching Eren’s legs regrow, the ugly stumps bloody and steaming, proof that Eren had failed, once again. 

He remembers the nights that he would curl into himself, wrap his arms around his body and pretend, pathetically, that they belonged to someone else. Spent the hours rocking himself to sleep in place of a mother; someone to lie to him, to promise him that everything would be alright. 

The Captain never lied, not about anything that mattered. 

*

Then there was the morning of the milk incident, one month into their stay on the island.

“I can hear you, you know,” Eren told him over breakfast one day. “Every night, crying.” 

It had been a whole week since Levi last had sex with him, and the emptiness was agony. It ached in ways that Eren was only too familiar with; that longing to be touched, in any and all capacities that the Captain should see fit – whether it be the hard sole of his boot breaking the skin of his cheek, or the whip of his belt against the tender swell of his ass. Longed to be stuffed full of his come once again, ass cheeks desperately clenching together to keep it all inside, but never quite being able to, his puckering hole stretched so big by Levi’s cock that it weeped from him, drip by salacious drip. 

It was so unbelievably selfish of him, but Eren dreamed of bearing Levi’s children. Of harbouring a life, a baby, unburdened by the harrowing truth of the world in which they live, that Eren could raise with Levi. A little boy with black hair and grey eyes, and Eren’s olive skin, Levi’s strength and unwavering loyalty – this impossible unification of the two of them. 

Knew it was an outrageous fantasy, certainly one that he’d never admit to Levi. Eren’s destiny was shrouded in blood, in murky waters, tainted black by the enormity of his burden. Eren was wrong for Levi in every way that mattered – wrong timeline, wrong parts, wrong decisions. 

There might exist a universe in which they do build a life together, one devoid of death and suffering – where they live on a farm, and keep chickens, and their children play happily around their feet – but it wasn’t this one. 

So, that morning, when he admits to Levi that even his weeping at night, the broken expulsion of names into those lonely hours, the nightmares – it wasn’t private. That Eren listened to that pain, and shared in it; told him in the hopes of enraging the Captain enough that he’ll take it out on his body, (however he choses, Eren would take it), and the reddening of Levi’s skin, the way his nostrils had flared – it filled Eren with sudden delight, and he bristles where he sits at the bench, anxious for the Captain to retaliate.

Levi, he’d been sat with one leg propped over the other, fingers curled delicately around the rim of his cup. And then, he sighed, unfurling himself from the chair, and Eren shuddered as he walked over to him in great, purposeful strides. 

Eren had flinched in anticipation, hand jerking off to the side and into a full glass of milk. It teetered at the edge of the table for a split second, before crashing to the floor and splintering into a thousand pieces, milk splattering all up Levi’s legs, saturating his trousers and dripping over the hard nose of his boots. 

Levi had stopped, hand freezing where it had been about to – to hit him, or maybe curl into his hair and force his face into his breakfast, he’d never know – and he looked down at himself, at the way the milk seeped into his clothes. 

“Tsk,” he muttered, and then, Eren could pinpoint the exact moment the idea struck him. To his sheer delight, Levi had pointed to his boots. “Get on your knees and lick it off.” 

And Eren – he did, without hesitation. 

Sank to the ground, didn’t care about the way the shards of glass cut into his knees, because Levi was watching him, lips parted only just, and Eren was sure that the Captain grunted as he pressed the flat of his tongue over the front of his boot. 

Resisted the urge to gag around the texture – dust and dirt and mud from when Levi had been out walking that morning, and then the flavour – a strange conjugation of earthy, terraceous overtones, diluted by the milk, the creaminess of it – 

Levi told him he was disgusting and Eren agreed. Made a show of lapping away at the hardened leather, big blow job eyes trained on Levi’s face as he went, and it struck Eren that he’d yet to experience the weight of Levi’s cock in his mouth. Suddenly yearned for it, the scent, the taste, wanted the Captain to choke him, fuck his face until he couldn’t breathe, until the tears rolled down his cheeks and he’d be begging him to stop – 

And then, he’d noticed it. 

Levi was hard. 

Achingly so, by the look of it – cock tented obscenely against the confines of his trousers, and Eren had longed to reach up and touch, but all of a sudden, Levi was stepping back. 

The Captain had quickly dashed Eren’s hopes that he’d be taken upstairs, that Levi would finally fuck the life out of him the way he truly deserved. 

“You’re done,” he said, as he adjusted himself in his trousers. “Dust pan and brush is in the pantry. So is the mop and bucket. Clean this up.”

Eren visibly pouted.

“But –,”

“I know what you want, Eren,” bit Levi. He leaned down to Eren’s level and took him by the chin, and Eren had swallowed, hard. “ _Beg_.”

He didn’t have to ask twice; Eren caved, immediately, eyes brimming with tears, the need unbearable.

“Please, Levi,” he whimpered. “It’s been a week. Use me. Punish me. _Please.”_

Levi stuck his tongue into his cheek. “Is that the best you can do?”

“No, I – I want to you to fill me up. I want you to break me, Captain, please. I deserve it.”

Something strange had passed over his face, something unidentifiable to Eren – and then Levi sucked his teeth. 

“No,” he spat, and Eren flinched. “You can suffer.” And, that really is what it had been about, Eren suffering – because Levi wanted it too. He was so hard that he’d started to leak through his trousers, and _fuck_ , Eren wanted to taste it, but Levi wouldn’t let him. Would cut off his nose to spite his face, if it meant he could toy with him. “I suggest you keep what you may or may not hear at night to yourself, Eren.” 

He’d left him there on the floor, then, (as he had a habit of doing) surrounded by not only the milk and broken glass, but the aftermath of his abject stupidity. When Eren had finished scrubbing, and sweeping up all the little shards, he’d ambled all the way up the winding stairs to his bedroom, blood trickling down his legs as he went.

And who should he find waiting for him but the Captain himself, sleeves rolled to his elbows and washing his hands in the bathroom sink. 

“Sit down,” he’d ordered, turning off the tap. “Let me remove the glass before your healing kicks in.” 

So Eren had done as instructed and sat on the edge of the bed, and Levi had knelt between his legs. Used a pair of tweezers to pluck the splinters from his skin, frown lines set deep in his forehead as he worked, diligently, carefully. It wasn’t lost on Eren how this was perhaps the gentlest he had treated him since they arrived, and it stung not because of the glass pulling free of his flesh, but because he doesn’t deserve Levi’s kindness. Not now, not ever. 

“Does it bother you?” Levi had asked eventually, letting the glass hit the tin bowl with a loud clink every time. Eren knew he wasn’t talking about the pain; pain was part and parcel of his existence, now. 

“Of course not,” he says, truthfully. And then, an afterthought, “I just wish I could help.” 

Levi had considered this, eyes flitting to the side for only a moment and looking straight through whatever they landed on, but said nothing else on the matter.

*

_“Your leg, Captain. Does it hurt?”_

_Eren had brought him tea, even though the last time Eren made him tea Levi had spat it back into the mug and asked him to take it away._

_“Obviously. Did Hanji send you?”_

_And Eren had blanched, and then puffed out his chest, and said “no, I came because I think I’ve got it, now.”_

_The tea had tasted vile but Levi nodded anyway._

_“It’s better this time,” he lied._

*

A lifetime ago, Eren would have done anything to protect his friends.

Even though the execution might be different, it’s still true now, however unbelievable that notion might be to them. 

It’s been weeks since Levi had found his way into Eren’s bed. He really is lonely, these days; spends his nights sobbing quietly into his pillow, jerking himself into oblivion, Levi’s name a strangled cry on his lips. The Captain didn’t want to look at him, anymore, that much was obvious. Perhaps it was difficult not to see the faces of those they’d lost at Eren’s hand – and Eren could understand why. 

It had dawned on him some time ago that there were only two ways in which this saga could end:

Inadvertently or not, he would kill Levi, or Levi would kill him. It was simply inconceivable that the Captain could allow Eren to go through with his plan; he’d be the final hurdle, the final barrier, however the future played out. 

And that was the truth of it, as ugly and undesirable as it may be, and the reality suffocates him, every second of every miserable day that he continued to be alive. 

_Not long now,_ he’d think. 

Tonight is the same as any other. 

Eren curls into himself, lays his head flat against the mattress in favour of cradling the pillow against his chest, except this time, he doesn’t cry. Doesn’t jerk off, or even imagine Levi creeping into his room, cock heavy between his legs, waiting. Just lays there, still, holding the thin feather stuffed pillow between his arms, waiting for the exhaustion to finally take him. 

He’s falling asleep just as his door creaks open, and his whole body seizes, eyes flying open at the sound.

“Levi?” he ventures, voice only just carrying through the dense veil of complete silence. Isn’t able to even hear Levi’s footsteps against the floorboards, and jumps when he feels the foot of the bed sink.

“Obviously,” Levi deadpans. “Were you expecting somebody else?”

Eren scrambles against the sheets, heart somewhere in his throat. 

“It’s just – it’s been a while, is all.”

He moves to light the oil lamp that sits by the side of the bed, the room suddenly filling with warm, honey toned light. 

There sits Levi, staring at nothing. And then, he brings his hands up to his shirt, and Eren swallows around nothing as he begins to slowly unbutton it, one by one. 

“Tell me you’re sorry,” he says, eventually, fingers pausing at the final button. “Say it.”

It’s the one thing that Eren cannot bring himself to vocalise – because of course he is, but he isn’t, all at once. If only Levi knew what the alternative would be. 

“I can’t, Levi.” 

And Levi, he sighs. 

“Just checking.” Eren could cry, then, at the thought of Levi getting up and leaving him, retreating back to his own room, to the lonely confines of his mind. But Levi doesn’t leave. “Take your clothes off, Eren,” he says instead.

And Eren, he does exactly that. Tears his shirt from his body, and then his trousers – let the items fall carelessly into a pile on the floor. Levi tuts, because of course he does. 

“They’re coming tomorrow. This is the last time.”

And that – that leaves Eren breathless. 

The last time. 

It’s bittersweet, and carries with it an altogether larger meaning. 

Once they left, there was no turning back. 

Levi finally undoes the last button of his shirt, and then Eren watches as he folds it neatly and places it on the chair. Everything he does is a spectacle to Eren: the dexterity and grace with which he moves, impeccable – a one man show as he pulls his belt from his hips, and steps out of his trousers. Arranges them on top of his shirt, and then stands there in front of Eren in only his underwear.

Levi had never shown himself to Eren before.

Every time prior had been clothed; Levi would simply push his trousers down, never giving Eren the satisfaction of touching his skin, of seeing what lie beneath the uniform. 

Now, Eren stares at him, mouth agape. 

“Beautiful,” he mutters, and Levi frowns, reminding Eren that he didn’t deserve to look at Levi, not like this. He’s hard, they’re both hard, and after weeks of nothing, Eren pants against the headboard. “Please, Captain,” he says, and Levi sighs.

“Turn around.”

He does. Flips so he’s on his stomach, throbbing cock trapped beneath his belly. Hears Levi step out of his underwear, but doesn’t dare to steal a glance, lest Levi change his mind. Could come like this, probably, just at the thought of Levi behind him, naked, ready to use and abuse him like the worthless nothing he really was.

Then, whispered into the shell of his ear, “Tell me how you want my cock, Eren.”

Eren whines. “I want it, Levi, please. Don’t bother prepping me. Make it hurt.”

And Levi, he hesitates. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” breathes Eren. “I want to feel it burn.”

Historically speaking, Levi is nothing if not brutal with him, and now it sets Eren’s skin alight. Burns each nerve ending right to the tip, the anticipation, and Levi’s quiet as he lines himself up, and then – 

“Ah! _Fuck_ , Captain!”

It feels like being ripped apart, and Eren’s vision goes black. Levi grunts behind him, hands flat either side of Eren’s shoulders. Drops his head, breath falling hot against the back of Eren’s neck. The Captain is kinder to Eren than he should be – waits for him to signify that it’s okay to move, and eventually, Eren nods, body trembling with pain, the spot in which their bodies meet feeling as though somebody had actually set him on fire. 

And then, Levi fucks him. 

Demands that Eren thank him for it, the searing pain mixed with the debilitating pleasure, and Eren obliges, cheek pressed firmly into the pillow under the flat palm of Levi’s hand.

“Thank you, Captain,” he cries, and Levi growls, lands his hand hard against Eren’s ass cheek.

“Use my name.”

He’s drilling into him, now, fast – abusing that sweet spot again and again, and Eren sobs, tears slipping over his cheeks and wetting the fabric beneath him, the sound of skin slapping against skin so obscenely loud in the little room, of their little house, on this little island, so far removed from anyone else. 

“ _Levi_ ,” he cries, “Levi, Levi, Levi!”

It’s embarrassing, how quickly Eren comes.

He’s sure he blacks out, for a second – wakes again only moments later to Levi emptying inside of him, and Eren cries, begs him to keep going, as long as he can, to stuff him to the brim. 

“Please, Levi,” he begs. He’s so lost that the words are out before he can even stop them: “Knock me up, Captain, fill me with your children, please –,”

And Levi’s thrusts come to a shuddering halt, and then he’s leaning over him, panting, mouth at his ear. 

“Fucking freak,” he breathes, arms trembling to hold up his weight. “Is that what you want, Eren? My kids?” he asks, finally letting himself drop against Eren’s back. 

It’s done now. The secret is out. 

“In another life. Yes.” 

And then, so quiet and far away that Eren almost misses it:

“Could have been this one, you idiot.”

*

They were coming to get them this morning, Hanji and the others.

Levi stares out across the body of water, waiting, and Eren, he joins him. 

“It all changes after this,” Eren says. It hurts somewhere new – he’d thought he’d experienced pain in all of it’s forms, at this point, but somehow, this was different. Now, it feels as though he’s mourning something that might have been. 

“I know,” says Levi. “You realise the likelihood is that there will only be one of us to see how it ends, don’t you?”

Eren doesn’t answer. Instead, watches the way the water sparkles beneath the early morning sun, and realises, with a sharp pang of guilt, that the world really knew nothing of what was awaiting it. 

He looks at Levi. Doesn’t have to be a mind reader to know they’re both thinking the exact same thing. 

_It won’t be you._

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr:
> 
> [@mintakah](https://mintakah.tumblr.com/)


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